


Honey-Mead in a Smoked-Oak Barrel

by quills_at_dawn



Series: A Man or a God [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Male Eivor (Assassin's Creed), Yuletide, assassin's creed Valhalla - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28288299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quills_at_dawn/pseuds/quills_at_dawn
Summary: “You’re only making him come because you want to show him off,” Ceolbert pointed out as he repinned his cloak more securely, “You know he will disapprove of the carousing.”Eivor and Leofrith take Ceolbert to the Yule Festival at Ravensthorpe.
Relationships: Eivor/Leofrith (Assassin's Creed)
Series: A Man or a God [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071254
Comments: 14
Kudos: 73





	Honey-Mead in a Smoked-Oak Barrel

**Author's Note:**

> I should be playing more Valhalla so I know what actually happens.  
> And yet... And yet... 
> 
> Enjoy! <3

**Honey-Mead in a Smoked-Oak Barrel**

“Are you warm enough, Ceolbert?” Eivor asked, looking the young aetheling over, “You have time to change into a different cloak,” he turned his head slightly to project towards the bedroom, “Since someone isn’t ready yet.”

“You’re only making him come because you want to show him off,” Ceolbert pointed out as he repinned his cloak more securely, “You know he will disapprove of the carousing.”

“Nonsense,” Eivor dismissed, rearranging his furs, “He’s a military man and this is just the sort of thing they do.”

Ceolbert shook his head faintly but smiled to himself as he saw Eivor’s face light up when Leofrith appeared, looking taller and broader than usual in a quilted gambeson and a black wolf pelt.

“Shall we go?” Leofrith offered, wearing a look of stoic resignation.

The festival grounds were bright and welcoming, the thegn owned as they approached the other river bank. The lights strung about the place and the high-piled bonfire put a glow in the gathering dusk and he could almost feel the excitement light up his two companions.

“We could get Ceolbert a shield,” Eivor suggested as they looked over Norvid’s prize stand, “To hang on the wall as a souvenir.”

“A hundred and fifty tokens,” Leofrith frowned, “We’ll be here all week.”

“Would that be such a bad thing, Leofrith?”

Leofrith looked down at the blond. It was difficult to argue with the soft look in the clear blue eyes and with the soft, breathy voice whose every gentle vibration ruffled every hair on the back of his neck.

“Archery first?” Eivor suggested, having won the argument.

The first tokens were won easily enough but Leofrith reckoned that by this count they would be up beyond dawn and Eivor’s fingers would be raw and bleeding before they had half of what they needed.

“Want to try?”

“I’m no good with a bow and arrow,” Leofrith shook his head, “I could do a spear — ridiculous at this distance and it won’t do for speed.”

He nodded at the targets.

“You go again. Ceolbert, watch how he holds himself.”

He watched his pretty blond fire arrow after arrow with an agility and precision that only came from long and repeated practice.

“We’ll need a faster way to earn tokens,” Leofrith remarked, dropping a kiss onto Eivor’s head as they walked away, trailing after Ceolbert who was going from stall to stall with his usual attention.

“Why the rush, Leofrith? Ceolbert is enjoying himself.”

Leofrith made a noncommittal sound as they paused by the cart loaded with smoked-oak barrels of mead.

“Another for me and a double horn for Leofrith.”

“Eivor, if you can’t stop saying my name like you’re trying to lick it, then you’d best not say it at all,” Leofrith murmured when they were out of earshot, then considered, “In public.”

“It’s not my fault it has all the wrong letters!”

Leofrith snorted at that then made a face at Eivor when he took the first swallow of mead.

“What is this? Why is it so strong? How many of these have you had?”

“This is only the third.”

“And Ceolbert?”

“None,” Eivor said firmly as their gazes sought out the aetheling and found him by the standing mead barrel, “Yet.”

Eivor, already securely tucked under Leofrith’s arm and his cloak, put a gently restraining hand on the powerful chest.

“There’s no harm. Let him try it!”

“So tomorrow he can sleep away half the day and look green for the rest of it?” Leofrith asked mildly.

“It’s only three horns, same as I’ve already had, and look at me.”

Eivor saw from Leofrith’s narrowed look that that wasn’t quite the winning argument he’d thought it would be and changed tack quickly.

“It builds character and teaches responsibility,” he justified, “You learn that actions have consequences, and it forces one to power through the pain, to go beyond one’s limits.”

“To go beyond one’s limits,” Leofrith echoed, his narrowing gaze dropping to Eivor’s blue one.

“You haven’t lived until you’ve fought off an enemy raid with your head ringing like the Valkyries are already coming for you,” Eivor explained contentedly, leaning his head against Leofrith’s shoulder.

He made a small sound of pleasure when Leofrith bent his head to him and kissed him.

“I thought you said no licking in public.”

“I think it might be time to take you home,” Leofrith warned mildly and the warm promise in his voice nearly had Eivor agreeing.

“We’re still short of tokens for Ceolbert’s shield,” he pointed out.

Leofrith growled softly, low in his throat, as he watched Ceolbert start on his second horn.

“Well done!” Eivor smiled at Ceolbert after he’d won the contest and was refusing a rematch with a polite inclination of his head.

“This is not the best way to appreciate the qualities of the mead,” the princeling remarked, “But the cheering does give the whole experience flavour.”

“He’s a good lad,” Leofrith murmured, brushing yet another kiss onto Eivor’s head, as Ceolbert was drawn away by congratulations and the promise of further wonders.

They were just moving to follow Ceolbert when Dag’s voice stopped them.

“Wolf-Kissed, I challenge you!”

The look Leofrith shot the raider was the one he usually reserved for Ivarr Ragnarsson and Eivor splayed a hand over Leofrith’s chest once again.

“This will be no challenge at all,” Eivor told Dag and grabbed a horn.

It was no challenge, Leofrith conceded within himself, but only because Dag drank slowly, sloshing mead out of the horn with every swallow. And when Dag challenged Eivor to a rematch even though the blond had started to sway on his feet, Leofrith thought he understood why.

“Hand me that horn. We drink until one of us forfeits,” Leofrith said shortly, meeting Dag’s gaze, “Or are you afraid of losing to a Saxon?”

Seven horns later he watched Dag stumble onto a nearby table and grip its edges tightly.

“Leofrith, that was unnecessary,” Eivor said very mildly in the tones of one who meant to signify that it had also been deeply gratifying.

Leofrith bent his head to Eivor so the blond could lap the last drops of mead from his mouth in a light kiss then they wandered over to the brawling pit where Ceolbert was leaning over the barriers, watching with interest.

“Eivor, my most muscular friend!” Sunniva beamed at them brightly, “Ready to join the brawl?”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Leofrith said firmly, pulling Eivor back into his arms when he saw the tipsy blond start to pull off his furs, “I won’t have another man’s marks on you. I’ll do it.”

“And if I don’t want marks on you?” Eivor asked with a pout in his voice.

“Oh, they won’t get the chance to mark me,” Leofrith said with a predatory smile, his gaze already on the pool of contestants, “Here, hold my horn.”

He gave Eivor a hard kiss before shrugging off the wolf pelt and Eivor took a few long swallows of Leofrith’s mead as he watched the Saxon strip to the waist like the others.

Leofrith’s strength and his surprising speed served him well and it was clear that there had been many such fights on his road to becoming war-thegn. He circled slowly, fists held high, goading his opponents into coming to him before side-stepping and hitting back at an exposed flank. Few could take more than a couple of his sledge-hammer blows and fewer still manage to do more than graze him.

And in between each bout, Leofrith came back to Eivor to be handed a tankard of restorative ale, which he drank down in one long swallow, his thirsting gaze never leaving the blond. And Eivor watched each round closely, gaze locked on the powerful figure as his pale fingers curled into the thick fur of the wolf pelt folded over the fencing before him.

“That is what you should look for, _odlingr_ ,” Sunniva said with a sigh as she leant her forearms on a fence post next to the aetheling, “Someone who looks at you like that.”

“The way Leofrith looks at Eivor?”

It was a thought Ceolbert had whenever the thegn covered Eivor with one of those dark, patient, possessive, capitulating looks of his. Surely that was the kind of love that snared gods and heroes in the old sagas?

“No, the way Eivor looks at his Saxon!” Sunniva laughed, “You can see that Leofrith satisfies him like no other. _That_ is the secret to a happy relationship!”

Leofrith waved at them and Sunniva pushed off to hand him his winnings, more than enough to claim the shield, and Ceolbert watched his two guardians, light and dark, standing close together, as beautifully paired as honey-mead in a smoked-oak barrel.

He smiled to himself.

Perhaps it took a little of both to brew something so strong and so sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays, everyone! <3


End file.
